Food Ag Prize

About the NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences

The NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences recognizes research by a mid-career scientist (defined as up to 20 years since completion of PhD) at a U.S. institution who has made an extraordinary contribution to agriculture or to the understanding of the biology of a species fundamentally important to agriculture or food production. For the purpose of the prize, areas of science with applications to agriculture include plant and animal sciences, microbiology, nutrition and food science, soil science, entomology, veterinary medicine, and agricultural economics. The recipient will be awarded a medal and a $100,000 prize. The prize is endowed through generous gifts from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Most Recent Recipient

How will the world eat in the face of climate change and other threats? That question dominates Ainsworth’s pioneering research, which has helped to reveal how man-made atmospheric changes will affect the physiology and growth of crops around the world.

Recipients

Elizabeth Ainsworth (2019)For pioneering research unraveling how anthropogenic atmospheric changes affect the physiology and growth of crops and for being a science ambassador and role model for the next generation of scientists.Read more about Ainsworth's work»

Edward S. Buckler(2017)For insights and discoveries that changed our understanding of quantitative genetics, for facilitating genetic characterization of genes underlying critical traits and their deployment for breeding programs in a myriad of species, and for exemplary collegiality in sharing resources for the betterment of crops and the human condition.Read more about Buckler's work»